[quote="bang"][i]Thank you very much for your very detailed answer.
This is exactly the feeling I got while visiting Wells and all the parents I have met are definitely happy having their children at Wells.
I think this website is a very dangerous place, especially the pay portion (please have a look at it) as it is very easy for anonymous contributors to write untrue statements and name teachers/admin, not mentioning the reports.
For example, somebody wrote that parents had been warned about the Sukhumvit 47 closure after having paid the fees for the following school year.
By my investigation, this is not true.
Parents told me they had been told about the closure after Songkran, and the payment for the next school year was done in June.
I think Wells should ask for a removal of the reviews mentioning untrue statements / names.[/i][/quote]



You're welcome! I entirely agree that sites such as these foster inaccurate images of schools, and I personally would not rely on one in seeking out employment. I do have a membership, which I purchased in order to read all of the negative reviews I had seen last year, but I otherwise do not pay much attention to it.

Sifting through the details of those reviews, it was not hard to determine that the vast majority were posted by former employees of our Thong Lor and then-closing Phrom Phong campus. Virtually all of the former had been hired by the administrator that was being let go and were always told that our campus leaders were responsible for any unpopular decision. (This was the reason I clarified in my initial post that each of the campus heads reports directly to the chairman. The teachers had simply been misinformed.) Another review was from an employee who was taking anti-depressants and had openly sought to create dissent among the teaching staff because, at his own admittance, drama made life exciting. Yet another was posted by a teacher during her rocky first year, after which she had an enjoyable second year.

The reality is that those who have had bad experiences are far more likely to post on sites such as these than those who simply enjoy their time at a school and eventually move on to another. Because the sites grow and flourish when more educators pay in order to read negative reviews, it does little good to request that false claims be removed. I simply have faith that the kinds of people we would like to be a part of our school community will be critical enough to make their own decisions without relying on anonymous posts and comments.

Additionally, there were a few other points I neglected in my first post. In regard to pay, I am not authorized to release the full scale, and I am unsure of the range for teachers at our Bang Na and Thong Lor campuses. However, at our On Nut campus, our Western-certified teachers currently fall between approximately 60,000 to 120,000 depending on their qualifications, experience and years of service. This again does place us lower than many other top international schools, but is still relatively competitive. As I had mentioned, we are actively seeking greater pay increases for our staff in order to remain competitive.

Secondly, I noticed a few references to our student demographics. I don't have grade-by-grade data on hand, but I can state that our current breakdown is as follows (taken from the latest WASC report, which I will add to the "Downloads" section of our website tonight or tomorrow if I'm able): "The large majority of students are Thai (40%), but the expat community is growing rapidly. The next largest ethnic representation is Indian (19%), followed by Korean (14%), Taiwanese (6%) and Americans (3%). There are twenty-four (24) different nationalities represented at this school which provides a diverse student body that represent the international community." At this point our Western population is growing the fastest, with around fifteen Americans, Canadians and others joining over the past year. The campus enrollments as of last week were reported as 481 at On Nut, 197 at Thong Lor and 29 at Bang Na (which is in its first year of operation).

Ultimately, I certainly don't feel that our school is perfect. On the contrary, I believe we have many ways in which we need to improve, and I and the my fellow administrators believe it will be time for us to leave if we ever feel that no changes are necessary. As I said, we're more than willing to provide the contact information of individual teachers if anyone would like an insider's perspective of Wells. Additionally, if you would like to get a sense of our school's culture, I would encourage you to visit our Facebook page at facebook.com/wellsschool.

Before contributing my own thoughts, I will specify in full disclosure that I am an administrator (and former teacher) at Wells International School’s On Nut campus, where I have worked for the past four years. Due to my position and the changes I’ve witnessed during that time, I can perhaps offer a different perspective on some of the points that have been raised.

I would first like to clarify the structure of the school, as several comments are inaccurate. Wells currently operates three campuses—one from nursery to Grade 2 at Thong Lor (Sukhumvit 51), one from nursery to K3 at Bang Na (Srinakarin 62) and one from Grade 1 to Grade 12 at On Nut (Sukhumvit 85-87). We closed our original Phrom Phong campus when we elected to not renew the lease on the land. Each campus has its own head, each of whom reports directly to the owner and chairman of the board, Mr. Chang. Finally, it is a for-profit institution, but Mr. Chang resisted raising fees over a long period of time in an attempt to reach the middle to upper-middle class. We are, however, implementing fee increases of 5% per year for the next five years as we begin to reposition the school. Having clarified these points, I would like to respond to several comments:


External evaluation and indicators of quality

All of the Wells WASC reports are available for download on our website. (From the main page, navigate to the “Downloadsâ€